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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

"Get Them to the Church, Quick!"

This statement has been on my mind all afternoon. Driving home from Altus today I was listening to the radio. Some older song (like from my teenage, '80's era) was playing. As it finished the DJ said that the song had something to do with adultery. I usually change any songs with lyrics like that, so I was still trying to figure out what the song was and what the words were, when he made the statement, "Get them to the church, quick!" He was meaning the people the song was about, implying that if they were taken to the church - meaning a building - that everything would be okay or at least there would be more hope for the people.

This statement made me also think about a quote in one of my favorite Disney movies, "The Princess and the Frog". The spoiled little character named Charlotte makes this statement in the movie, "I was sweatin' like a sinner in church!".

The church, as thought of in both of these instances is the building where God is worshipped. In both of these statements, it's as if someone will enter this building and automatically something miraculous is going to happen. This kind of thinking puts power in the building, instead of in God and in Jesus. The Bible tells us that the church is not a building. The church, rather, is the called out....the children of God. Christians around the world make up the church, and Jesus is the head of the church. He died for the church - for the people - not something made of bricks and mortar.

It would be great if everyone that walked into a building where God is worshipped would automatically turn away from sin and turn towards God, but that isn't the way it usually works. Only when a sinner comes into the presence of God, hears about His Son and the Savior, Jesus, and then responds to that gospel message (which may or may not be in a building with a group of other believers) is there a change.

So, instead of the statement, "Get them to the church, quick!" we should be saying, "Church, get to them, quick!"

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansingher by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.